


An Arrow's Edge

by Ravin_Pods (Ravin), vamprav



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Phil Coulson, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Gen, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Loki's Scepter (Marvel), M/M, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 30-45 Minutes, podfic included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25893169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravin/pseuds/Ravin_Pods, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: When Clint forgets to put an arrowhead in Phil's pocket before going on a mission the SHIELD Agent is aware that something is about to go horribly, terribly wrong.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 78
Collections: Pod_Together 2020





	An Arrow's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Scroll down for work text.

### Streaming Audio

### Download or Stream from Dropbox

[MP3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/y14m73cf92vuopt/An%20Arrows%20Edge.mp3?dl=0) | 00:34:20 | 34.33 MB

Phil woke to the sound of a car alarm going off on the street below. He took a moment to register this impossibility, his apartment had the best sound proofing not on the market, before he turned his head to take in the open window and the empty half of the bed.

Phil sat up, spine popping in the way it always did when he overslept after a long mission. Clint must have left for his run and forgotten to close the window behind him, a dangerous habit to be sure but one that Phil and Clint both ignored.

The last man to attempt to break into Phil’s apartment had regretted it, though Phil still maintained that a chef’s knife through the thigh was the least severe reaction one could expect from interrupting date night. Clint hadn’t stopped teasing him about it but Clint also had no room to talk considering the arrow that had been buried in the wall was barely a millimeter lower than the man’s crotch.

Phil surveyed their bedroom, taking note of everything that had changed over the course of his - Phil checked the alarm clock - 14 hour nap. Closet door thrown open, bow missing from the weapon’s rack, note pinned to the nightstand under a glass of water.

Phil grabbed the note.

_ Fury called. Emergency with Blue codes. Be back by Friday. _

There was a tiny doodle of an arrow head in the bottom corner. A spark of warmth bloomed under his ribs, Clint could have just texted but Phil liked having things on paper so Clint obliged him.

Phil got up and went to go make himself a pot of coffee.

If there was an issue with the Tesseract he’d probably be called in in a few hours to deal with the fallout of whatever Science! shenanigans had led to the issue. It was a minor miracle that he’d been allowed to sleep for this long, though that probably had more to do with the fact that Fury was perfectly aware of exactly how pissy Phil was after five days without sleep than with proper protocol.

The last time he’d been called in after he’d pulled a five day work binge and had less than twelve hours of sleep heads had rolled. Literally, in that case, Natasha always did give him the best presents.

Phil had downed half the carafe before he could even think about starting to make himself presentable to the world at large, the caffeine taking longer to kick in than he’d anticipated.

Once he’d showered and shaved he made his way over to the closet and started flipping through his suit jackets. Phil frowned to himself as he ran careful fingers over the pockets and came up with nothing.

He double checked, then triple checked before taking a step back.

No arrow head.

Clint always, always left an arrow head in Phil’s pocket before leaving on missions where they’d be separated for longer than a handful of hours. Phil hadn’t thought much of it the first few times, hadn’t even noticed it the first two times it had happened, Clint would have, and probably had, made a brilliant pick pocket.

But then Clint hadn’t remembered to slip the arrowhead into Phil’s pocket and…

Phil had never been superstitious but one disastrous mission was bad luck, two was a coincidence, five… that was the beginning of a pattern.

Phil took a deep breath and mentally pulled up his contingency plans. There were a lot of them, more than most people would consider necessary but Phil was dating Hawkeye of all people and the amount of shit that man could get up to when the forces of the universe wasn’t attempting to make every single one of his superstitions come true was dazzling.

Phil refused to take any chances when one of those superstitions had proven correct time and time again.

*****

There was an arrowhead in a small box, hidden in the very back of Coulson’s desk drawer. He had plans for that arrowhead, plans that would have to wait now, plans that might never come to pass.

*****

Clint looked out past the fog of blue that had  dragged itself across his vision like frost covering a sheet of glass. His mind was clearer than he suspected it should be, he was just muscle after all, or at least that was all the sceptre thought he was. He didn’t need his mind intact for whatever it was Loki had planned, not like Selvig did.

But still, the shackles of swirling blue mist that tried to cloud his thoughts didn’t fit properly, he wouldn’t be able to slip them, wouldn’t be able to twist his wrists and be free in a matter of seconds but he had room to move, room to breath.

Room to think.

He didn’t want to escape, didn’t think he could escape even if he tried, not without seriously damaging something in his mind and that wasn’t as easily mended as a broken thumb. But just because he was trapped didn’t mean that he didn’t have room to collect intelligence.

Loki wasn’t well, his eyes swinging from bluish green to a shade closer to Clint’s own on the turn of a dime, face paler than was healthy, and his skin was clammy. He’d been limping earlier and he winced every time that the fabric of his shirt pulled tight over his back.

Clint had only heard part of his plan but his mind was free enough that he could piece a few things together. Clint could never figure out why people thought that him being a hired gun that prefered a to use bow meant that he wasn’t intelligent enough to think things through, granted he didn’t think things through most of the time, but he could do college level math in his head for fuck sake.

Loki was injured, injured enough that he’d vomited at some point, a fact the man had tried to hide but Clint could still smell the bile when he’d retrieved Loki from the back of the truck.

Loki’s plan was to open a portal in a crowded city, a major city, though Clint didn’t actually know which one.

Loki’s eye color kept changing, kept wavering between shades of unnatural blue.

Loki had the sceptre on him at all times.

It wasn’t all that hard really, to realize that Loki didn’t actually want to take over Earth, Midgard, whatever. Clint just had to not think about it all that hard and mentally chalk it up to dramatics and the blue fog let him ignore the fact that Loki’s plan probably wouldn’t work all that well even if everything went smoothly, which it most likely wouldn’t.

“Sir, if you aren’t going to let us seek medical attention then you can, at the very least let me look you over,” Clint murmured, low enough that Loki was the only one ot hear him.

Loki blinked, blue fading briefly, hints of green peeking through and Clint very carefully didn’t notice the fear hiding in those depths. He could vaguely feel what would happen if he let himself notice that, the edge of the predatory blue that wanted to snap shut around the delicate tightrope Clint was walking.

He’d walked tightropes before, he knew how easy it was to fall.

“You have medical training?” Loki asked as the blue snapped back over his eyes.

“SHIELD wouldn’t let me get away with my… dislike of doctors if I didn't have medical training.” Clint smiled innocently.

That understatement could have been seen from space. If Phil were here his lips would be quirked up in that expression that meant he was laughing on the inside.

Phil…

Clint shouldn’t be thinking about Phil right now, the blue liked snapping loyalties, or overwriting them, anyway, and Clint didn’t know what it would do with Phil if it had a chance. Clint very carefully shoved Phil into the tiny box in the back of his head where he was keeping all of the things he wasn’t thinking about.

“Then by all means,” Loki drawled.

Clint nodded and went to grab the medical kit he’d managed to steal, it was a little more involved than most med kits but most of that didn’t exactly matter considering Clint didn’t actually know how morphine would react in Loki’s system.

It hadn’t exactly taken much brain power to figure out that Loki and Thor weren’t exactly base level humans, even if Clint hadn’t had access to the classified files and Clint wasn’t equipped to deal with an allergic reaction at the moment.

Clint set the case down on the floor as he knelt behind Loki, taking in the wreck of his back. Whoever had sent him through the Tesseract’s doorway hadn’t exactly let him heal before shot putting him through space.

The wounds were shallow and overlapping, weeping at the edges where the scabs were tearing free of pale flesh. It had been years since Clint had seen whip wounds, the last having been in a training film. SHIELD had never claimed to be a safe employer but they did try to prepare you for what the fuck you were getting yourself into when they could.

Clint whistled under his breath, taking in the complete wreck of Loki’s back, there was barely a half inch of skin between each mark. Not all of the wounds were scabbed over whip wheels but a lot of it was and the rest of the marks were bruises, dark purple wreathing angry red with the faintest tinge of sickly yellow around the edges. Some of those bruises were nearly black and looked nearly bone deep.

“Right, disinfectant and then bruise paste,” Clint murmured.

The blue was retreating a bit, it wasn’t all that interesting at the moment, his thoughts on healing rather than anything that might be dangerous to the sceptre’s plans. Clint let thoughts come and go as they pleased, not holding on to them for long enough to truly register.

“Disinfectant?” Loki asked.

Clint hummed and carefully skimmed fingertips over the skin of Loki’s back. “To prevent infection, you’re running colder than a human would and your skin doesn’t feel feverish but better safe than sorry. You’re lucky none of this needs stitching.”

If someone had had a go at his back with a knife it probably would have needed stitches, there was a lot you could do with a knife. Clint could think of a lot of ways to injure someone without either incapacitating or killing them, period.

He’d seen a lot of those things either in person or in training videos. The injuries in front of him were actually milder than he’d expected, then again there were a lot of ways to break someone without leaving a visible mark, the fucking staff was proof of that.

“Ready?” Clint asked.

He wasn’t doing this without consent, even if they both had dubious control of their mental faculties, he wasn’t touching someone he didn’t intend to kill without their permission. That had been one of the rules he’d set for himself early on and he was sticking to that decision.

“Do it,” Loki spoke through grit teeth.

His body language said he wanted to shrink away but wouldn’t let himself.

Clint very quietly let the thought of punching whoever did this in the face slip across his mind and away before the blue could catch it. He’d watched the tapes from Loki’s brief New Mexico visit, had looked up the mythology in his spare time, and listened to Miss Lewis’s surprisingly informative rant about the Asgardians.

He knew how Loki should be acting, as a Prince, a Trickster, a Warrior and none of those roles involved cowering away from someone who was trying to heal you because all you could remember feeling was pain.

*****

There was an arrowhead in Coulson’s pocket.

It hadn’t been put there by Clint, Clint had never even seen the thing let alone touched it before.

It shone a beautiful purple under the cold light of the sun.

*****

Agent Coulson was very carefully  _ not _ losing his temper.

Natasha had noticed, then again, Natasha always noticed these things and she seemed to be the only one so far. Losing his temper wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all Clint, but hearing the whispered conversations happening around the bridge was enough to make his blood boil.

“I could kill them, if you want me to,” Natasha remarked, just loud enough that the current idiot heard.

“We’ve been over this, killing coworkers sends the wrong message,” Coulson replied.

It was an old joke, one that had started because some idiot had tried to set up a camera in the women's locker room. Natasha had taken offense, having found the idiot in the act, and proceeded to drag the man into Coulson’s office. She’d then asked, in all seriousness, if she could kill him.

Clint had neatly fallen out of the vent, laughing hysterically as Coulson tried to figure out how to reply to the situation currently happening on his carpet. It had been both marvelously unhelpful and adorable enough that Coulson hadn’t been able to fault him for it.

He’d thought of and discarded many explanations as to why they couldn’t kill the man, most of which she wouldn’t have accepted before he settled on, “Killing your coworkers is both an unnecessary waste of your resources and may send the wrong message to our allies.”

When Natasha had nodded and then dragged the man back out again to go toss him in a cell Coulson had called Agent Hill into his office and proceeded to pour them both a drink. Hill had been the one dealing with Natasha’s… everything up until that point and they both deserved the whiskey.

There had been many times in the past few years where that offer had been incredibly tempting but absolutely none of those times had been as tempting as this particular moment. Coulson was suddenly, incredibly glad that the denial was instinct at this point and he didn’t need to actually think about it.

Sicking the Black Widow on his fellow agents would not reflect well on his end of year review. Fury may not be able to actually fire him but there were several ways the Director could make his life more difficult.

She’d do it too, he knew she would. Natasha was a loyal woman with very loose morals and a view of ethics that had boiled down to asking if it was a food the first time she had been made aware of its existence.

Phil still couldn’t figure out if she’d been bullshitting them on that point.

But the point was Natasha’s loyalty was hard to earn and even harder to lose once obtained and if Phil asked her to burn SHIELD to the ground she would have done it without a second thought. Natasha liked being a member of the organization but she was loyal to Clint above all else and Phil had long ago come to accept that Natasha saw him as a less than ideal alternative to Hawkeye’s hand on her leash.

Sometimes Phil wanted to track down whomever had hurt Natasha, had molded her mind until she couldn’t comfortably exist anywhere but the shadows, and kill them, slowly, until they regretted everything they had ever done. Most of the time he comforted himself with the knowledge that most of them were already dead and the few that weren’t wished they were.

Loyal Natasha might be but once you broke that loyalty you were nothing more than just another enemy in a sea of them, and an enemy that had done far more damage than any of the others at that. Phil was perfectly aware that if he ever broke her loyalty and didn’t kill her immediately afterward, he’d never see her coming before the blade was already buried in his trachea.

“Your impressions?” Coulson asked.

“His eyes are blue, changeable, like the ocean,” Natasha remarked.

“I’d noticed that.” Coulson crossed his arms and focused on the screen in front of them.

Loki stood in his prison, calm as if he were exactly where he wanted to be. Which, Phil’s eyes narrowed, was actually a possibility given who they were dealing with.

Plans within plans within plans, that was how tricksters typically worked, how they had to work because pulling off massive manipulations on the scale ‘gods’ worked tended to make people angry.

Phil had gotten Clint out of enough situations to realize that fact, and to realize that for every prank his boyfriend got caught in there were at least five more that Phil never found out about. Because while tricksters would react and they could improvise, quite well in most cases, they were far more at home as the person who acted first, that tapped the fault line until it cracked down the center and they could step back and watch the chaos unfold.

“So which fault line are you aiming for?” Coulson murmured under his breath.

“Do you want me to find out?” Natasha asked.

This was why Coulson hated it when Clint went MIA without Natasha. All that narrowed, predatory focus was put on him, the leash that was the woman’s dripping red ledger cutting deep into his arm until it bleed.

If it were Phil’s choice, which it wasn’t, it never had been, Natasha would never look at him with those expectant eyes ever again. It made his skin crawl over his bones, knowing that she would do literally anything he asked of her.

“You sure you can get something out of him?” Phil asked.

Natasha smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile, it was full of an implication, one made of venom and fangs.

“They claim they’re gods. What won’t I get out of him?”

*****

Here’s something most people don’t know about gemstones. They may not be easy to damage but if you know where it hit they’d shatter like a piece of glass under a hammer.

After all, even diamonds have fault lines.

Phil Coulson refused to let that happen to Clint.

*****

Clint came back to consciousness in flashes of movement and sound, red and yellow and orange blurring and blending together to drive out the pulsing, numbing blue fog that had wormed its way into almost every corner of his brain. It was like a disease, some deep rooted infection that had just gotten worse and worse the longer he stayed under, creeping in so slowly he almost hadn’t noticed it.

“Where’s Phil?” He croaked out.

His mouth was dry and his throat raw, like he’d been screaming, he probably had been. His eyes weren’t even open yet but he could feel the weight of Natasha’s gaze on him.

“On the bridge, yelling at Fury,” Natasha spoke from somewhere to his right. “His handling of Loki wasn’t exactly… delicate.”

“Good,” Clint let out a relieved breath and turned to face her. “How’d you get the magic out of my head?”

Natasha’s lips twitched.

“Cognitive recalibration,” a pause while Clint processed that information. “I hit you really hard in the head.”

Clint snorted in amusement before something else occurred to him. He’d attacked the Helicarrier, sure it had been under orders and under the influence of mind control - which Clint was suddenly incredibly glad SHIELD had regulations for - and he’d tried to limit casualties but… But there was no way to limit the risk completely, not without catching the scepter’s attention.

“How many-” Clint started to ask.

“No, don’t do that to yourself,” Natasha interrupted. “We both know what it looks like when someone is unmade and this is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for.”

Clint paused for a second and looked at Natasha. No one else would have noticed it, Natasha had been trained out of most human mannerisms and reactions, she’d had to relearn how to emote and even now most of her actual feelings only came out in micro expressions.

Clint took in the very fine perse of her lips and the slightly too wide tilt of her eyes and huffed in solidarity. Natasha was  _ pissed _ , not frustrated or annoyed but truely, blindingly furious in a way Clint hadn’t seen since the last time he jumped off a building without warning anyone first.

“Did Loki get away?” Clint kind of wished the god hadn’t, it would make explaining the sceptre so much easier if Loki was still on the Helicarrier.

Natasha’s eyebrow quirked as she started undoing the straps around Clint’s wrists. “I don’t suppose you know where he’s going?”

“Nope.” Clint popped the p just to watch Natasha’s eyebrow twitch. “But, his plan is going to come together soon, today.”

“That does not leave much time to prepare,” Natasha commented.

“No, it doesn’t.”

*****

Amethyst was supposed to be healing. It was a powerful, protective stone that warded off psychic attacks.

Coulson was not a strong believer in superstition, never had been, never would be but Clint was. And what Clint believed, more often than not, came true.

The small things anyway.

Coulson was kicking himself for not giving the arrowhead to Clint earlier.

*****

“Agent Hawkeye!” A voice roared, reverberating across the destroyed road. “Report!”

Clint flinched and turned to smile at the suit clad man stomping toward him. Phil looked like he was ready to murder someone, or bury them under a month worth of paperwork.

“Phil,” he called.

Phil glared at him as he drew level with the Avengers. “Do you want to tell me why you didn’t report to SHIELD medical after returning from an extended period in captivity?”

Clint winced because, yeah, that had been literally the first thing Phil had negotiated him into when he’d taken over as Clint’s handler. Clint had been confused at the time because some of the previous handlers and team leads hadn’t given two shits whether or not Clint was injured as long as he finished the mission and the rest hadn’t done more than standard medical checks when the mission was over.

Though taking into account the fact that one of those incidents had led to Phil becoming Clint’s handler, it really wasn’t that strange in hindsight. Clint had fractured his leg, walked back to the extraction point on it, and then ended up with an infected gash on his side because of the lack of first aid on the way back to their base.

Clint wasn’t actually sure exactly what had happened to the handler who hadn’t noticed Clint’s injuries and he was almost certain that he didn’t want to know. Phil was terrifying when he wanted to be, in a calm, casual way that only amped up the intensity of his fury, and while Clint had only seen him truly furious twice, he never wanted that mild mannered rage directed at him.

Phil looked like he was on the edge of that crackling intensity, the lighting bolt of wrath that sat just under his skin. Clint tried to suppress a shiver, it had been over a week since he’d seen Phil, long enough that it had been starting to put him on edge.

“There was a limited window of time, sir. And my mission wasn’t technically over yet,” Clint drawled.

Phil huffed, his lips curling into a tiny smile. “Considering the World Security Council’s answer to the problem was to shove a nuclear warhead at it I’ll say you made the right call. Triage, Agent Hawkeye, is there anything serious that can’t wait a few hours?”

“No, sir,” Clint said.

“Good,” Phil said.

The suit clad man reached out and pulled Clint into a deep, desperate kiss. Something in Clint’s chest melted and he wrapped his arms around Phil, clinging to him like he was a life line.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Stark squawked from somewhere in the background. “I thought there was a cheli- with a bow, you clever bastard.”

“Wait, we’re allowed to do that now?” Rogers asked.

“Homosexuality has been accepted through most of the country for a few decades now.” Natasha’s voice was calm but the edges were sharpened to cut.

“Isn’t he your superior officer?” Rogers sounded vaguely concerned.

“SHIELD doesn’t have fraternization laws and if Madame Carter’s journals were anything to go on, you have no room to talk,” Natasha pointed out.

Phil pulled out of the kiss to glare at the red head. Clint buried his face in the crook of Phil’s neck and breathed in the scent of his cologne, rich and earthy with a strong musky note and the underlying scent of gunpowder that seemed to cling to the suits Coulson wore no matter how many times he took them to the dry cleaners.

“Agent Romanov, you do not have clearance to have access to Director Carter’s personal journals,” Phil paused. “Who am I trying to fool, you’ve never needed clearance to get access to anything.”

Clint stifled a laugh.

That was true, one of the reasons Natasha’s clearance was as high as it was was because she had no boundaries. She’d just go places, seemed to think of locks as a suggestion, and had laughed outright at their computer security when she’d first joined, or, at least, as close to a laugh as Natasha had been capable of at that point.

Really, it had sounded like a crow trying to hack up a lung, at which Nat’s expression had gone flat and she said, ‘I do not think I am doing that properly,’ before proceeding to hack into the security camera network. It had been… unsettling to say the least.

Phil pulled back from the hug, his eyes roaming up and down Clint before he took a step back. Clint almost followed, he didn’t want to go back to being professional, not after the week he’d had, he wanted to curl up in Phil’s arms, to bury his head in his boyfriend’s chest and never let go.

Then Phil sank to one knee and Clint’s eyes went wide, riveted on the jewelry box that he hadn’t even seen the other man retrieve.

“I’ve had this for about a year now, I know I should have said something earlier, the last few days just put a few things into perspective.” Phil opened the jewelry box with a careful flick of his fingers. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

The necklace was beautiful, a carefully cut purple arrowhead hanging from a bone white leather cord. Clint recognized that cord, Phil had used it on a mission once, had found the damn thing somewhere in the middle of a terrorist base and had proceed to use it as a fucking gerot. The arrow’s symbolism was obvious though.

“Yes,” Clint breathed before tackling Phil to the ground.

*****

It looked lovely around Clint’s neck, the weight reassuring as it winked at the people around them. Coulson hadn’t taken his eyes off of him since he’d put it on, a possessive glint finally showing through in his gaze.

*****

Loki had managed to drag himself to a wall to pop himself up by the time the Hawk and his allies had made their way to Stark’s living quarters. His ribs hurt, most likely cracked, and the wounds on his back had probably opened up again.

That didn’t matter, not like the pain in his mind did, the wounds left behind when Thanos was knocked free throbbing as his magic tried to drive out the last vestiges of infection. It was a clean pain though rather that the deep festering ache that had been there previously.

The Hawk was the first one out of the elevator, predator bright eyes scanning the room before lighting on Loki. There wasn’t any hatred in them, or anger, just a calm calculation that made the scattered shards of Loki’s self preservation sit up and take notice.

“Green,” another man noted, not a warrior at first glance but upon second…

There were very few people Loki knew who were truly dangerous. Deadly, yes. Good in combat, yes. But dangerous, that was an entirely different game all together.

This man, who looked to be nothing more than a lord playing at politics, like nothing special, like nothing to take note of, he had an air of danger around him thicker than the densest of fog. This was a man who could take a handful of dirt and turn it into a deadly weapon, much like the blood haired Widow that trailed the Hawk’s ever move.

“Yeah, good to have that confirmed at least,” the Hawk noted.

“I think I will take that drink now.” Loki shifted slightly, trying to hold back a moan of pain as his injuries shifted.

The Hawk stepped in front of him, bending to loop hands under his armpits and lift. Loki blinked in confusion as the bare muscle’s of his arms bulged before scrambling to help.

“You need medical attention. Did your back open up again?” The Hawk asked.

“I do not know,” Loki said slowly.

He had to be hallucinating, there was no other explanation as to why the man he’d tried to subvert the will of would help him. The Hawk was a warrior of great skill and greater honor, one whom Asgard would welcome with open arms if he knew more than the bow.

Why would he be helping one who he had used magic on him? Loki had had more violent reactions from  _ Thor _ when he’d used magic on the other prince, even if it was meant to aid the other man in battle, especially then in fact.

“What?” Stark sounded exhausted and disbelieving but not entirely surprised.

“Hawk Eyed one, what is the meaning of this?!” Thor boomed.

Loki winced as he was lowered down to the couch. Moving hurt, moving hurt quite a lot, and if the Hawk hadn’t helped then he didn't think he’d have been able to move at all.

“Mister Stark, if you have not noticed by now that the younger Mr. Odinson-” the deadly man in the suit started.

“He is not my father!” Loki hissed, holding back a wince as his ribs shifted.

The Hawk tapped him gently on the shoulder in the softest rebuke he’d ever received outside of his mother’s disappointed gaze. Loki blinked at him in an attempt to hide his shock.

“-Mr. Friggason,” the man continued without missing a beat, “has green eyes rather than the blue he was bedecked in earlier, I will begin to sincerely doubt your intellect.”

Stark spluttered in indignation and Thor gaped in open disbelief. Loki could feel the beginnings of a smile pull at the corner of his lips, it appeared that he was not as lacking allies as he had thought.

“I didn’t think anyone would notice.” Loki raised his arms, allowing the Hawk to divest him of his under tunic.

“Trust me, Mr. Friggason, your actions were easy enough to parse for someone familiar with a trickster’s temperament. The slash and burn approach is not one your kind take to without the presence of either extreme duress or a secondary plan. Most often both,” the man said.

One of his eyebrows went up and Loki let out a soft chuckle, it hurt but it was worth it. He hadn’t been truly amused in a long, long time.

“What the fuck?” Stark deadpanned.

“Phil, babe, don't make him laugh, I’m pretty sure at least two of his ribs are cracked.” The Hawk ran careful fingers over Loki’s chest, assessing the bruising that was already starting to form on his chest.

“Four actually,” Loki corrected.

Maybe…

Maybe things wouldn’t end as terribly as he’d predicted they would.


End file.
